DebianOn is an effort to document how to install, configure and use Debian on some specific hardware. Therefore potential buyers would know if that hardware is supported and owner would know how get the best out of that hardware.

The purpose is not to duplicate the Debian Official Documentation, but to document how to install Debian on some specific hardware.

This card is easily usable by installing the firmware package, viz. firmware-iwlwifi. The card can be put to use either using wpa_supplicant or Network Manager (under GNOME and KDE).

Modem

(not covered yet)

Webcam

The integrated webcam is

Bus 006 Device 002: ID 05a9:2640 OmniVision Technologies, Inc.

It works with uvcvideo module, but you may compile it using:

aptitude install linux-uvc-source && m-a a-i linux-uvc

Touch Pad

The Touch Pad works as is, but can be made to work better and more configurable with the Synaptic related tools available on GNU/Linux. As such, there are two problems I faced with the touch pad. First, the movement and buttons were perfect, but middle clicking wasn't happening, even if I pressed both the right and left mouse buttons together. Second, typing is extremely difficult, as it is tough to avoid resting the palm on the touch pad as you type. Both these problems can be solved by the following procedure.

First, the following snippet is added to /etc/X11/xorg.conf for making full use of the touchpad driver:

Ensure that you have the [xserver-xorg-input-synaptics http://packages.debian.org/xserver-xorg-input-synaptics] package installed. Then, restart X, and you should now be able to configure the touch pad options using userspace tools. First, middle click starts working straightaway. As for avoiding touch pad interference while typing, syndaemon can be used as follows:

syndaemon -d -i 1

This causes the touch pad to be turned off for 1 second after keyboard activity, and turn it back on. If you want a bigger time out, then you can increase the 1 to a higher value. However, the latency of a non-working pad immediately after typing may cause discomfort.

synclient can also be used to control the touch pad from the command line. The gsynaptics package provides a simple GUI which allows you control these options.